Trust without blockchain.
Every action in Mandala is signed by whoever took it. Acting for someone else is a signed permission. Two businesses exchange signed documents and each keeps a copy. That gives you a record nobody can forge, without a chain, a token, mining, or a network of strangers agreeing on anything.
An invoice for one artificial owl, $53,190, arrives at Massive Dynamic. It says it comes from Tyrell Corporation.
Nina’s Mandala checks the signature against the key it already holds for Tyrell, sees that Tyrell is a supplier she trusts with invoices, and puts it in her payables. Rachael sent it, acting for Tyrell, and the invoice says so.
No platform sat in the middle. No network of strangers voted. Two businesses each kept the same signed document.
sent order MD-0451- Owl, artificial, 1
- $48,000
- Delivery by Planet Express
- $1,250
- Sales tax
- $3,940
- Total
- $53,190
sent invoice #2049Who acted, for whom, when.
Each person, each business and each accomplice has its own key. An action is signed with the key of whoever took it, and nobody’s key ever signs for somebody else.
A delegation says who may act for whom, on what, until when. It is granted by someone with the right to grant it, and it is signed too.
It acts by your delegation, never in your name. Read any entry and you know whether a person or an AI did it.
Past its end date, or once withdrawn, a delegation covers nothing. What was done under it stays in the history.
Hermes may handle supplier invoices for Planet Express, signing as himself. The grant is a record too, signed by the owner who gave it.
action GrantAsOwner(ref: Text(len=100), party: Identity, party_handle: Text(len=100), delegate: Identity, delegate_handle: Text(len=100), scope: Text(len=200), granted_by: Identity, ends_ms: Int, ownership: SubjectRef<Ownership>, grantor: SubjectRef<IdentityRecord>) observe ownership where active == true observe ownership where organization_key == arg.party observe ownership where organization_handle == arg.party_handle observe ownership where owner same_subject arg.grantor observe grantor where active == true observe grantor where key == arg.granted_by validate state.revision == 0 or state.active == false context.signer == granted_by scope.len > 0 delegate_handle.len > 0 ends_ms == 0 or ends_ms > context.clock.milliseconds
Real, from the standard library: an owner of an organization grants a delegation. The contract observes the ownership record and the grantor’s identity, checks that the signer is the grantor, and refuses an end date already past. The organization’s own key is never needed.
A blockchain answers a question Mandala doesn’t ask.
A blockchain lets strangers share one ledger that none of them controls. To do that they must all agree on one order of events, which takes a network of validators, and something to pay them with. It is a real answer to a real problem. It isn’t this problem.
| A public blockchain | Mandala | |
|---|---|---|
| The ledger | One, shared by everyone | One per person or business, on their own machines |
| Who must agree | A network of validators who don’t know you | Your own machines, with each other. Between businesses, nobody: each keeps its copy |
| What it costs | Fees per write, paid in the network’s token | Nothing per write. No token exists |
| Who sees your data | Everyone on the network, unless you add more machinery | You, and whoever you send a document to |
| Whom you trust | The protocol, and a majority of validators | The parties you chose, for the kinds of document you chose |
| What a signature proves | That a key signed it | The same. Whether to accept it is your decision |
Your orders are yours and your supplier’s invoices are theirs. Nothing forces the whole world to agree on which came first, so nobody has to be paid to decide.
A fact counts once the machines that hold your Karma agree on it, in order, and it is on disk. They are yours, so they don’t need a puzzle to keep each other honest.
Whom you recognize, and for what, lives in your own records. An introduction from a partner lets you recognize someone new, trusted with nothing until you say so.
What you give up, plainly: there is no public registry anyone can read, and no neutral third party holding the record if two businesses disagree. Each holds the same signed document, and that is the evidence. If you need strangers to share one asset register with no operator, a blockchain is the right tool and Mandala is not.
Checked at the door.
When a document arrives from another Mandala, the first thing checked is its signature, before anything is recorded. Then your own rules decide what happens to it.
It is refused before it becomes a record.
From someone you recognize, for a kind of document you trust them with, it goes into the work. Anything else waits for a person.
A signature proves who sent an invoice and that it wasn’t altered. Whether you owe the money is still your call.
Tyrell is a recognized supplier trusted with invoices, so #2049 went straight to Nina’s payables. The whole document is kept by its digest; Tyrell’s Mandala keeps the same document as sent.
What works today, and what’s coming.
A signature on every write to your records; delegations with a scope and an end, checked by the contracts that accept delegated actions; device enrollment under your identity; signed documents, relationships and introductions between identities; receipts for every accepted fact.
Proof of who acted for a sender, as a grant the receiver can check for itself: today a document records who acted, and the receiver takes the sender’s word for the grant. Public discovery of businesses that choose to be found. Bringing what goes out through tools such as mail under the same contract rules.
You don’t need the whole world to agree. You need to know who signed.
No, and nothing in Mandala would use one.
No. Each Mandala keeps its own history on its owner’s machines. Only what you send someone travels, as a signed document.
Your identity has a root key that you keep safe, apart from the keys on your devices. A lost device is revoked; the others carry on. The docs describe recovery and what is still being built.
Delegation on the Dharma page, and exchange between businesses on the Karma page.